Is there a lock symbol at the top of the screen next to the battery indicator ? If there is, then depending on what you've got Settings > General > Use Side Switch To set to (rotation lock or mute notifications), then you can lock/unlock the rotation by the switch on the right hand side of the iPad above the volume switch, or via the taskbar : double-click the home button; slide from the left; and it's the icon far left; press home again to exit the taskbar. The function that isn't on the side switch is set via the taskbar instead : http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4085

If there isn't a lock symbol then try a reset : press and hold both the sleep and home buttons for about 10 to 15 seconds (ignore the red slider), after which the Apple logo should appear - you won't lose any content, it's the iPad equivalent of a reboot.

Also just to add, that the orientation is changed if i switch the device off, turn the device and then turn it on... So it can sense the orientation of the device... It just does not change dynamically while the deice is on.

Same issue since upgrade yesterday. Reboot worked once or twice, but now after three reboots even that doesn't help. Sleep-rotate-wake seems to be the only way to get rotation. Apps with fixed rotation also work, but after exiting the app the the screen is back to the state it was stuck at. It is possible that this is an app related issue, as after the first two reboots it worked for a while before getting stuck again. As I understand it some rotation related APIs have changed and apps that have not been updated and are utilizing deprecated APIs may cause this problem. However, it should under no circumstances cause an issue this severe and there should be an easier and obvious way to alleviate this, limiting the issue to the affected apps only and not degrading the experience on the whole device in such a dramatic manner.

I have not been able to identify potentially offending apps to this point as I am currently in "stuck mode", but I do have some suspicions. Costing all the apps and doing a reset lead to nothing.

This issue should be addressed urgently on Apple's side, as even if it is an app related issue, it should at most be limited to the affected app and not render the whole device useless.

Alas, I've tried to isolate this to perhaps a single app or maybe a few, but even after force-closing all apps in the background and doing a reset this issue keeps recurring after I leave the iPad to sleep for a few minutes. A reboot helps temporarily, only as I figured you would have to start turning it around as soon as it boots. Once you leave it to sleep for a bit it usually means its done. It is a sad state of affairs and I am flummoxed by the number of reports related to this issue, but even more so by the common responses - (1) check the switch, or (2) reboot - does it seem like overnight everyone just hit the rotation lock switch by accident? And it just so happened that they did so after upgrading...

OK, so it seems in my case it was indeed an app issue, albeit a very weird one as described above. I finally deleted an app I installed just right after the upgrade, and besides other minor bugs in the app itself, it seems it also messed up the autorotation on the whole device (the problems are reported to the developers). After almost a full day of shooting troubles and a signifficant nuissance in the process, this seems to be resoved for me at least. My advice to anyone else experiencing similar issues - check rogue apps hijacking the rotation lock, even if they are not running (my guess as to exactly how this happens is as good as anyone's). I am kinda worried a bit at the possibility of other apps or updates causing similar trouble in the future, but hopefully this gets resoved at the OS level at some point.

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